Project information

Women Together Against Violence

Karuna support a number of women's organisations across India. We are helping them come together to work with local government, police, judiciary, and women to improve the appalling situation of low-caste women.

Charity information: Karuna Trust

Need

Dalit and tribal women across India continue to be extremely vulnerable to violence. They lack education, political voice, knowledge of laws and confidence. Common forms of violence these women face are verbal abuse, physical assault, sexual harassment and assault, and domestic violence and rape.

These women don't have advocates, support, and so access to means of improving their situation. There are women's movements dominated by high-caste women and Dalit movements dominated by men.

Solution

Karuna's Maitri Network gives a voice to these groups of women who remain marginalised. Our pan-Indian women's network engages with local government, police, judiciary and local men. They work to sensitise them on the issues faced by Dalit women and to make sure laws are being properly implemented.

Most importantly, they provide support and a voice for local women, so they can find ways to improve their situation, and so their issues can be raised publicly and solved.

Impact

Long term, we hope to bring about changes in attitudes towards low caste women, and greater inclusion, security and confidence for them.

This will be demonstrated by changes in policy as well as statistics and surveys conducted by the government and NGOs. Importantly, our long-term partners are charting the impact of our work over time.

Risk

The risks to the aims include 1) backlash from men 2) men not engaging in the activities 3) training not being suitable for the needs of the organisations 4) new organisations may not be well engaged in activities.

We will deal with these with 1) regular home visits 2) the organisations will have their capacity build to engage men. Primarily young men which we have previously discovered are open to learning 3) a needs assessment will be carried out 4) a due diligence process will take place.

Reporting

We will update regularly with case studies, pictures, videos as well as against outcomes. We will report the findings of our baseline survey at the beginning of the project and then report against this.

Location

This project works with a network of grassroots women's organisations across India. It will be co-ordinated from Pune, Maharasthra, but partners are in states all across India (West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh)

Beneficiaries

Poor Dalit and tribal women, who have been the victims of violence, or are likely to be so will be the primary beneficiaries. Men, and society at large, will benefit from the trainings and activities do they are more sensitised to gender and women and girls are treated better.

Why Us?

Karuna has been working to counter the effects of caste discrimination in India for over 30 years. Much of this time has been spent working to counter discrimination and violence against women, and we now have number of grassroots partners working hard across the country.